ACA NEOGEO Samurai Shodown III

Genre: Fighting Game

Players: 1-2 Competitive (Local / Online), Online Leaderboards

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Review:

Samurai Shodown III, sometimes subtitled Blades of Blood, is a Fighting Game released in 1995 in arcades, on the NEOGEO AES home console, and the NEOGEO CD console, later receiving ports to numerous other platforms. In the current day, this is probably SNK’s second best-known Fighting Game franchise after the King of Fighters games, and this is the third game in the series, with this release of the game on Nintendo Switch coming in 2018.

Samurai Shodown III, tries to shake things up with a new control scheme that’s a bit less accessible than what was in prior games, and while it slims down the playable roster to only 12 characters, one could argue that the real character count is twice that due to each character having two versions that play significantly differently. Overall, I think I prefer Samurai Shodown II, though I could see others choosing this game over its predecessor.

This release of the game includes a new “Hi-Score Mode” that challenges players to score as much as they can in one run before seeing a game over screen. There is also a new “Caravan Mode” that does much the same, but with the limit being five minutes. In addition, this release of the game includes both English and Japanese versions, and gives players a decent array of options, including various display options, sound options, challenge modifiers, button mapping, and online leaderboards.

While these settings are nice, there’s one setting noticeably absent here that was present in the Samurai Shodown NEOGEO Collection – the ability to map combinations of button inputs to one button. Given how this series assigns important commands to multiple simultaneous button inputs, this is a glaring omission, and a big point in favor of getting the collection.

In the end, Samurai Shodown III is a solid, if somewhat dated, Fighting Game that’s still enjoyable today. However, if you’re considering buying this, you may want to instead consider getting the Samurai Shodown NEOGEO Collection. It will cost you more than just getting this one game, but you’ll save on buying multiple games in the series, plus it has the better control options and bonus content you just won’t find here. However, if for some reason you only want the third Samurai Shodown, and don’t mind missing out on all of that, you may find this game worth getting.

tl;dr – Samurai Shodown III is a Fighting Game that changes up its control scheme and reduces the character roster but makes up for it by adding alternate versions of every character. The result is a mixed bag that some will like more than others, and it still doesn’t quite compare to modern games in the genre. Also, this release lacks control options and bonus content in the Samurai Shodown NEOGEO Collection, so you may want to consider getting that bundle instead. However, if you’re just looking to buy the one game, this is a pretty decent choice.

Grade: B-

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